Nightingale
by Kazo Sakamari
Summary: Short AU where James, Lily and Harry lived, but the Marauder's still fell apart. The war is over, their youth is over, and Sirius and James are drunk.


Just a story that popped into my head after watching an episode of House of Cards.

Hope you guys like it!

Please leave me a review!

* * *

He moved slowly, he was in no rush, and besides it had been a while and in the dim lighting he had to watch his footing on the uneven stairs.

Everything was startlingly the same and it brought a wave of affection coursing through him.

Though that may have been the whiskey, he wasn't sure.

Pushing the door open he flinched, seeing the shadow of a man in the room.

The man spun wildly, but he wasn't fast enough.

He had never been fast enough

James was the undisputed king of transfiguration but Sirius had ruled over Defense Against the Dark Arts. It had been a matter of finding the perfect balance between being good at the Dark Arts and talent that made him so bloody brilliant at Defense Against the Dark Arts.

James' wand flew in a perfect arc and Sirius snatched it up with casual grace.

"Didn't think anyone would be here." He muttered and James shrugged on the other side of the room. His hazel eyes were locked onto Sirius', an odd trait James possessed that gave the impression that he was focusing intensely on you when he was actually lost in his own head.

"They boarded up our back exit." He final said, shaking himself a little to break the trance.

Sirius nodded, giving a wiry little smirk.

"You break into the school to get here too?"

They shared a glance and quickly looked away.

"Maybe they should up security?"

"Naw," James brushed his hair out of his eyes, "Not many people besides us can do what we just…"

He trailed off and his eyes flickered to the bottle in Sirius' hand and back.

"Remus isn't with you is he?"

Remus being probably the only other person that could do what they just did.

"No."

"Hand it over then."

Sirius tossed James his wand and the bottle and settled on the dust covered floor.

Taking a long drink James coughed, "Fuck, it's been a while."

There is no responds and James turns and peers out the boarded up windows out at the moon.

"It's been a while." He repeats, but Sirius can tell he's talking about something entirely different this time.

After a while James turns around and stands there, drinking and staring before Sirius waves his hand for the bottle and James slumps on the ground next to him.

"What happened to us?" He asks softly, looking around the shrieking shack, the destroyed furniture, the shabby paint job, the blood stained walls. "We used to be like brothers."

Sirius coughed and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

"More than brothers."

"Right….right, more than brothers."

They slip into silence for a while, not looking at each other.

"It's been 12 years Sirius."

"I know."

"What happened?"

Sirius hands the bottle back.

"You got married, had a son. The war happened."

James shook his head, his thick black curls flying about.

"No…no, we survived the war. You and me."

"Not Peter."

James flinches.

He remembers that day. He remembers it, the recurring nightmare that was once real.

He remembers.

* * *

There had been a spy in the Order. Someone who was feeding information back to Voldemort and they didn't know who.

Remus was dead certain it was Sirius, and Sirius was dead certain it was Remus. And James had been the monkey in the middle, forced to choose between two of his best friends with the life of his newborn son on the line.

Of course, everyone knew that there was no choice to be made. It was SiriusandJames, JamesandSirius against the world since day one.

But something had happened, mid October, Remus and Sirius had gotten into a fight, a real fight, blood was shed, tears fell, and suddenly it all became clear.

That it was Peter. Wormtail.

Their friend, the little boy they had protected, they had saved him in those early years.

He had turned, he was betraying them.

James remembered that day, when they cornered him.

Held him down and tortured him until he pissed himself, a steady stream of urine running down his leg forming a pool on the ground under their shoes, and begged them. Until he told them everything.

Sirius had looked at James then. Looked at him and asked.

"What do you want to do with him?"

And James didn't know. He honestly didn't. But his life was on the line because of his friend, his wife's life was on the line. His son, who he cherished so much even though he didn't have a clue what he was doing with a newborn baby.

"We kill him."

And Peter had screamed then. Terrified shrieks that hurt their ears and writhed beneath them.

James remembers holding Peter down, with Remus on the other side as Sirius stood, impassive, his silver eyes glinting dangerously. And then the flash of green light.

They burned the body and reported it to the Order the next day.

But they never told anyone the details of that night.

It became another secret that they held together.

That bound them together.

* * *

"We had such good times here though." James whispered, "Didn't we?" As if he's not sure.

And he really isn't. Not anymore.

But Sirius sighs, "I thought we did."

He takes a sip and rest the mouth of the bottle on his lips. "I was happy here. With you."

"No you weren't." James laughs, "You were never happy Sirius."

"Fine," Sirius groans, twisting around to look James in the eyes. "Happier."

"I'll take that."

They stare at each other for a long time and James notices all these thing that he's missed.

The laugh lines around Sirius' mouth and eyes. They way his hair is still black as night, even at this age. They way his mouth has tinned slightly.

How his face has finally lost that softness from his youth.

How much he looks like his father.

"I was happier though, with you." He says and James feels a pang of longing. For his youth, Hogwarts, for Sirius, for the years he's missed with Sirius.

"I was happy too. I was happy making you happy."

They share small secret smiles and this time they don't look away.

* * *

After Peter's death. Execution. Things were different.

And quickly spiraling out of control.

Sirius lost it. Fast and hard he went. And he dragged Remus down with him.

James, now confined to the duties of a young husband and father couldn't save them.

He would go for weeks without speaking to Sirius, then months, then he saw him at Hogwarts one day. Dressed in thick black robes that from a distance could be mistaken for Death Eater robes. He walked fast with his head down, his hair long and shaggy obscuring his eyes.

James had called him name and been rewarded with a wand pointed sharply in his face, wide almost frightened eyes. An expression that he had never seen on Sirius' face before.

"What are you doing here?"

"Meeting, with Dumbledore."

James frowned, "I thought you left the Order."

"I did, this was…different."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

They stared at each other for a moment too long and Sirius pushed his hair out of his eyes in a motion that James had once trademarked.

"I have to go."

"Yeah, me too."

"See you around?"

"Course."

It was a lie and they both knew it.

When James got to Dumbledore's office he didn't fail to notice the bloodstains on the carpet that even magic couldn't quite get out. But he didn't manage to put the puzzle together.

Which was okay, he was missing the vital pieces.

On Saturday the weekly Order meeting was called and while James wasn't paying much attention, two pieces of information caught his attention.

The first being that Regulus Black had been brought in by a freelance source, which was so obviously Sirius that James grimaced.

The second being that Regulus Black held the key to killing Voldemort. And that he was now dead.

James felt Lily's hand tighten on his and he swallowed. He felt sick as the puzzle pieces fell into place and he waved Lily on as the meeting wrapped up.

"Sir…did…did Regulus Black die in the Order's custody?"

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow at James and pushed up his half moon glasses, blue eyes bright.

"Regulus Black was alive, shaken, but alive when he and his brother left me."

* * *

"I just…I want our time here to have meant something. You know?"

"It did mean something. To me at least." Sirius said, drawing lines in the dust with his fingertips.

"I just…everything feels like such bullshit now…you know?"

Sirius looks up and laughs.

"James." He says and shakes his head. Long hair cutting his face into ribbons.

* * *

After Peter, after he left the Order, after Regulus, Sirius went on the hunt. It was a manhunt. It was revenge. It was deadly. Sides didn't matter, the war no longer mattered to him. He didn't care if you saved orphans in your free time, or raped children, if you were on his list, or in his way, you were dead.

He moved outside the law, the law no longer applied to him and the bodies started stacking up.

Remus stood by him.

And James….lost him.

Lost touch.

Sirius was like a one man army, except he wasn't fighting any war at all, definitely not the one James was fighting.

"I cared about you. Deeply. You know that right?"

"Did you?" Sirius isn't looking at him, he's busy staring at the blood on the walls. Trying to remember if it was his or Remus'.

"I did, still do."

"We were good together James."

"We were."

* * *

And they had been. At Hogwarts.

They had been brilliant at Hogwarts. All sparkle and flash and light.

And for a bit, after Hogwarts they had been brilliant.

Behind closed doors and away from James' wife's eyes.

But things had changed.

Lily had gotten pregnant. Sirius and Remus had had a brief fling, that made everything fall apart and come together at the same time and turned out not to be as brief as they both thought it would be.

The war happened and they all got dragged into it.

People dying left and right.

James remembers Sirius' face, that first time he saw the poster with the bounty on his head, paid for by his own family.

It was soul crushing, that look. Those eyes.

And then Peter happened. And it all just exploded.

Bits and pieces of them scattered everywhere.

Around them the war kept going.

People kept dying.

Remus kept trying to live.

Sirius kept killing.

James kept trying to raise his son.

* * *

They stood shakily, laughing about something or other, their speech slurred, words and meaning incomprehensible to anyone other than them.

They were JamesandSirius. SiriusandJames.

And they had never, not once, had trouble understanding each other.

Sirius steadied himself.

"I don't feel so good." He muttered and James stooped next to him.

"You gonna be sick."

"No…I just…can we stay here a bit longer."

"Of course, of course we can."

They sit down again, side by side, the bottle now empty and James flings it across the room where it explodes in a circle of sparkling glass shards.

"I do care about you." James says again, and his hand clutches Sirius' like it's his last tread to life.

* * *

The war eventually ended with Dumbledore victorious.

Thanks to Regulus Black.

Azkaban was oddly empty.

Thanks to Sirius and Remus.

And Harry was a healthy, normal, well manner boy.

Thanks to James.

James saw Remus once, looking like hell, so drunk he was barely standing in a muggle book store.

"Mate, you okay?"

"I'm fine James." Remus was an odd drunk, with no motor skills what so ever, but perfect pronunciation every time.

"Are you sure?"

"I said I'm fine." He repeated, looking around blearily. And it was then that James noticed the ring on his finger. The thick heavy gold ring with the Black family crest engraved in it, the sparking black diamond. The one Sirius had inherited. The one Sirius used to wear. He stared at it and Remus caught him staring and laughed.

"Fuck you James." He muttered and stumbled past James and out of the store without another word.

Somehow, during the war the Black family one by one died. James was certain Sirius was the cause of death for Regulus and Bellatrix. And the evidence leaned heavily towards Sirius concerning his parents unusual death by an airborne toxin in their summer house in France.

Narcissa he had an odd feeling was more to do with her husband, because they all knew Lucis was a creep in school. And he was positive that Andromeda was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But still, somehow, they were all gone. And suddenly Sirius was one of the richest men in the wizarding world.

Yet James never saw him. Not once.

He scanned the papers, and sometimes watched Sirius old house, that he had hated with a passion that James had never seen since, from across the street. And he thought about him constantly. And sometimes talked to him, that bright shining star in the night sky.

But he never saw him.

Until now.

* * *

"What happened to us James?"

"I don't know…I wish I did."

They were silent for a moment.

"I wish I did too."

"I thought about you, all that time."

"Me too. I missed you. So much."

"It hurts doesn't it?"

"Yes…"

The faint whispers of sunlight are creeping through the boarded up windows and Sirius drops his head onto James shoulder and they sit like that for a long time.

"It does hurt."


End file.
